Monday, January 23, 2012

A little history lesson...Cross Stitching is actually the first crafty thing I learned how to do.Many many years ago a friend of my dad's sat me down and taught me, I was 8 or 9 at the time. My mom also many many years ago was into cross stitching, and a couple years ago I commandeered her cross stitched Christmas ornaments she made when I was a kid ( hey she doesn't even put up a tree so they needed to be mine, I was saving them from a life of sitting in a box and never being seen!)

Saw the picture above in a Martha Magazine and knew I had no choice but to try it out.

Do not judge the dirty messy desk this was in the middle of my hand made Christmas mania!! You can see some of the supplies needed for this adventure.

I used the Aida 11 count fabric ( the numbers represent the size of the weave in the fabric, a higher number gives you a looser weave and a bigger cross stitch look)

I followed the directions in the magazine to customize my cross stitch family. I made this one for my Father and Mother in law. They are serious road bikers, and golfers ( and skiers etc) so I added some of their hobbies to the mix..

SO here is one of those times I've mentioned before where I didn't take "all done" photo! I thought I did, but I guess I did not! So I will be emailing my father in law to send me a quick photo of the finished product! Let me tell you, and I'm not one to brag ( HA HA ) but it was super cute!

So who is going to try this??!!

I have another one in the about half way done and another swimming around in my head for my own family.

Friday, January 20, 2012

OK, trying to clear the dust and get in gear. As I am sure most of you are. I have a pile of books and magazines next to me that need to sorted and looked through to make this years list of things to try and get done.

Thought I'd share some of the little projects I did over the holidays. I once again had the mighty goal of doing an all hand made Christmas. The big problem with this is that I CANNOT think about Christmas until it's Christmas,as in December 1st Yay its Christmas time.I cannot buy presents for friend and family until anywhere from 1 week - 1 hour before their birthday and the same goes for Christmas! That gives me only 24 ish days to get my whole family done. Not a good time frame for even the best most time efficient person , which I am not!

My sis just moved into a new place and mentioned she needed new plates for Christmas. SHAZAM, I said. I had this project in the works and couldn't think of someone id rather give it to. ( Well I was planning on selling them on ETSY but it was for my sissy!)

I found these plates at my favorite honey hole and snatched them up for $14 smackers. It was a vintage set so it was not a complete set,but it had the basic necessities. 4 dinner plates, I think 5 or more salad plates some bowls and dessert plates. I also picked up the 2 square platters at a separate antique store for around $25 bucks. I have seen hand painted plates on Pinterest and Martha Stewart so I did alot of homework on this one.

I really wanted to use the porcelain pens but they were about 50$ for a set, not in my price range. I think if I had looked a little bit longer I might have been able to find them cheaper but I didn't have time. So I bought the Enamels @ Beverly's for around $3 a bottle.

*One thing about this project I was worried about the safety of using this paint on plates that would be eaten off of. The paints are water based and non toxic, but on the bottle it says to not use in direct contact with food??!! Again doing homework on this one, I searched the web and even Martha had a tutorial on doing this project and she had the paint right in the middle of the plate!!! Oh my, so I decided to play it safe and keep it on the outer edge of the plate.

I by hand painted each of those little airplanes. If it doesn't turn out quite right you can easily wipe this stuff off and start again, and again,and again .....darn ocd!!!!

I baked in the oven @350 for 30 minutes as directed and Voila. I washed them down because some hidden dirties showed up after baking but I LOVE THEM!! I was so excited at how they turned out. And from what I hear my sis was happy with them to. I was a little weirded out giving her something I bought at the thrift store but I do love the idea of finding something special at an unusual location, saving it, and making it pretty..

If you didn't already know, I am obsessed with paper airplanes right now. Just one of those crazy things, not sure why, when or where it happened but it did. I think paper airplanes remind me of a simpler time maybe, a little bit of whimsy.

Here are some I made out of clay. I was thinking about listing these babies on my Etsy since I already have a set hanging on my wall.

Little crooked nose, got smashed on its first mission.. LOL

Well, here is to hoping I can blog more than once every three months, I took a bunch of pictures of projects but sometimes I am bad about getting the before or finished pictures! Bad Bianca!